Do the Vampire Voodoo Woo-woo! Hundred Watt Club, Brighton

You know what it’s like being out on the road and staying in hotels…you find yourself naturally eavesdropping on passing conversations…little titbits here and there. You can’t help it, you almost don’t want to, but it happens anyway.

I was walking through the hotel lobby before the show and I overheard a little snippet coming out of reception…

“I hadn’t gone for the whole thing before…just skirts…but this time I did…it was really tight…and then it exploded! It went up! Just a big rip all down the side…”

“Oh wow…”

“So no more leather dress after that…”

“I’ve never worn leather. What is it like to wear?”

“Hot!”

Which funnily enough is exactly what the Hundred Watt Club is!

Hot! Hot! Hot!

And explosive!

It’ll rip you a new one!

Boisterous leather clothing swept firmly aside, it’s time to get on with the show!

DAWN GRACIE strides sumptuously out of the shadows…

Dawn Gracie by Scott Chalmers Photography

We say ‘Dawn Gracie’ but for the first half of the show she’s Libera-She, and she’s wearing a MASSIVE white sequin dress with an equally HUGE clam headdress…

And she’s very curvaceous…

Behind the Candelabra indeed!

Boopdy-boopdy-boopdy-BOOP!

“Good evening Brighton!”

Libera-She kicks the shit into gear with a little jazzy version of “Smells like teen spirit”

Thigh, leg, wiggle, shimmy!

Libera-She wanders down the tiny steps from the stage and into the front row of the crowd…the front row’s made up of tables and cheeky, naughty, boozers.

It’s a delectable crowd this evening. Some well dressed in corsets and leather, others in suits and skirts with a touch of flamboyance.

“How are we doing Brighton?!”

A mumbly mumble…

“A bit more volume please! How are we doing Brighton!”

Crowd: (slightly more jolly) ‘Hurrah!’

“How are we doing Brighton!”

Crowd: WHOOOP!

“That’s better! Welcome to the Hundred Watt Club!”

Libera-She wanders further, sits on the lap of a man in a hat…smothering him…then smothering him even further…

Bettsie’s like a flaming bottle of rum exploding on the deck of a pirate ship…the type of explosion that reveals a fiery little hallucination to guide you towards a naughty, mischievous endeavour…

Cuteness, curves…swizzling, sweeping moves…

Crowd: “Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!”

Bettsie: Boop-boop-bottom-boop!

Crowd: Bam! Bam! Bam! (that’s meant to be a foot stomp)

Bettsie: strip-strip-strips…

…Rip-rip-rip…riiiiiiipppppp!

The clothes are off and she’s down to the smalls…

A little pose:

Lip snarrrl, rrroar…wunderbarrr…wink!

Oh, but what’s this?

Bettsie pulls out a A BIG PINK PUFFER! (for powdering the noses of giants)

PUFF! PUFF!

Pink and purple powder EXPLODES into the front row…it’s creating a psychedelic mist of colours, grains and twinkles…

PUFF! PUFF! PUFF!

KABOOM!

Powder explodes off Bettsie’s bottom!

PUFF! PUFF! PUFF!

KABOOM!

Bettsie Bon Bon by Scott Chalmers Photography

A twist, a turn…a sling and a fling..

Chin-chin

Ching!

Voila!

BIG SMILE!

And with that she’s gone!

Big applause!

The pink and purple haziness makes it look and feel like Apocalypse Now…

“Oh Suzie Q, I love you…”

Anyway…

Now a beautiful lady named ‘Fillie’ wanders on to pick up the smalls and sweep up the pink and purple powder…

Sweep, sweep, sweep…sweep them smalls away!

And the front row’s getting a face full of the pink stuff!

In amongst the coughing and spluttering:

Libera-She: “Anyone here from Bognor Regis?”

Silence.

“Good! I f******* hate Bognor Regis! I was once banned from Bognor.”

Banned indeed.

Next up…

JOE BLACK!

Oh, how gorgeous! Love a bit of Joe Black and he usually has such sumptuous outfits…this time it’s a LONG LONG LOOOOOOONG dark and shiny dress robe swishy-swishy-swishy number…quite delicate, a bit of a delight.

Joe Black by Scott Chalmers Photography

Joe: “I know what you’re thinking – f***! Glenn Close looks rough!”

ha ha

Joe has a little eukele (that’s the musical instrument not some kind of horrific euphemism)..and he’s pinging about with it…

Ah, the piraty pirate lady behind the Hundred Watt Club. This time she’s being a little bit Dinosaur Dinosaury…

I first saw Lena’s dinosaur act about a year ago at Cabaret Roulette ‘Evolution’. Back then it involved a bacofoil dino head and a cardboard tail (is that right?)…so I wasn’t too sure what to expect this time around. I took a pot shot and guessed ‘Raver hair and a Jurassic Park onesie!

Close!

But no…

Lena Mae by Scott Chalmers Photography

Lena’s dressed up like an atomic dinosaur bombshell this evening! She’s got a BIG DINO HEADPIECE and a little dino top and skirt…and an ELEGANT TAIL! It’s a bit 1950s, which goes with the whole retro act…

Like Joe, Lena’s singing a song – Diamonds are a girl’s best friend…

But this version has a difference…

It’s not ‘Diamonds‘ it’s ‘Dinos!‘

And it goes something like this little snippet…

“Dinos, not Rhinos, are a girl’s best friend!”

“Talk to me Jeff Goldblum, tell me ALL about it”

“Oh!”

“Oh!”

BOOP! BOOP! BOOP!

“Dinos, not Rhinos,.. are a girl’s best friend!”

BIG SMILE and a CHEEKY WINK!

And she’s gone.

But what’s next? Who is next? Where are they from?

It’s it’s it’s….

NOSFERATU! (played by Arran Shurvinton)

Wow!

Tall, dark, handsome – huge ears and looooooong fingers..

Nosferatu by Scott Chalmers Photography

(all silliness aside it’s a bloody good outfit)

Nosferatu has a phone, one of those old school ringer-ringer-dial things that those of us over 30 remember. You used to have to work hard to use phones back then…not like these touch screens. You needed balls and biceps and thighs filled with the strength of a thousand office secretaries.

Anyway…

Nosferatu dials…

RING! RING!

RING! RING!

Nosferatu: Hello! (to the tune of Adele’s ‘Hello’)

Phone: Hello! (by Lionel Richie)

Nosferatu slams down the phone. Vampire unhappy. Vampire sad.

(by the way, this is was miles better on stage than it is in written form and this is a bit of a composite)

“Say something…Say something, I’m giving up on you I’ll be the one, if you want me to…”

“Say something…I’m giving up on you…Say something…”

As the lights go down, Nosferatu quietly, eerily, enigmatically, silently, beautifully, deliciously, puts down the phone and steps back into the darkness.

Fin

INTERVAL

Gin!

As it turns out the couple sitting next to me are at their very first Burlesque show. So what, you say, so what? The couple are in their seventies! Seventy odd years old and you’re still getting out to fun shows. I love that! I also like how they’re eating ice creams out of the tiny little pots like you would at the theatre.

Well tonight is a little operatic, so :)-

xx

SECOND ACT!

DAWN GRACIE’s back in a black sequin dress…no Libera-She this time, but she’s still tossing fireworks into the crowd…

“There’s an animal on loose this evening…can you see it, can you see it?”

The crowd looks around, sees nothing…

Oh hang on…a TIGER! (played by TWISTED NYMPH)

Tiger pounces on the front row, dances onto the stage…

Song: In the Jungle

…THE MIGHTY JUNGLE, THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT…

Tiger’s all dressed up in a shiny outfit with little tigery collar and cuffs…

Twisted Nymph by Scott Chalmers Photography

Pounce, flip, spin, roar!

Rumble-rumble-bounce!

Twisted Nymph is a bit of a badass contortionist. Contortion never ceases to amaze me…how do you stay so limber contortionists?